'80s Anthology Series 'Monsters' Finally Coming to DVD

In the land of American TV DVD, it can sometimes seem that every show worth its salt has already been released. The early to mid 2000s DVD boom period brought with it season boxed set after season boxed set, with new title announcements almost every week. That said, there are still quite a few "holy grails" that remain without a legitimate stateside disc release.

For horror and sci-fi fans, some of those titles include 'Brimstone,' 'Freddy's Nightmares,' 'First Wave,' 'Night Visions,' 'Journeyman', and the 1980s anthology series 'Monsters.' Well, prepare to scratch one name off the wanted list, as 'Monsters' is now preparing to join fellow long delayed contemporaries 'Friday the 13th: The Series' and 'Tales of the Darkside' on the DVD shelves of loyal fans everywhere.

A sort of spiritual successor to the aforementioned 'Darkside,' 'Monsters' was also produced by Laurel Entertainment, a production company founded by zombie maestro George Romero and his frequent collaborator Richard P. Rubinstein. Unlike that earlier series, which often vacillated between comedy, drama, sci-fi, horror, and just plain bizarre tales, 'Monsters' usually delivered exactly what the name implied: monsters and lots of them.

Well known for its distinctive opening credits sequence featuring a human-like family of creatures sitting down to watch TV together, 'Monsters' played host to many current or future stars over the course of its three seasons, including Steve Buscemi, John Saxon, Pam Grier, Tony Shalhoub, Adrienne Barbeau, Gina Gershon, Jerry Stiller, Darren McGavin, Meat Loaf, Lili Taylor and many more.

You can now pre-order the complete 72 episode run of 'Monsters' on Amazon, which is spread over nine DVD discs. At this time, no individual season releases have been announced. The current price is $69.99, but I doubt it stays that high for long. The listed release date is Feb. 25, 2014.

Morning_Star (Crazed Contributor)
Level 43 (52%)Points: 14430.3Mood: Like I have a brand new godSince: 20/Oct/06

Message Posted On Nov 29th, 2013, 8:45 pm

"Usually delivered." Nice qualifier since there were a few episodes that really stretched it in terms of the definition and screentime of the monsters. As a whole, the quality of the series itself had a rate of hit-and-miss. But still enough good stuff to have me anticipating this release. And it'd be a relief to finally see Freddy's Nightmares get a DVD release one of these days. Surprised they haven't capitalised on that given the popularity of the franchise and they missed a nice promotional opportunity with the release of the remake. I mean, it was ho-hum as a whole (never been a big fan of the films either), but it'd be a nice piece to collect.